Tag: Annie

I’ve spent more time on the road than at home this month, getting less ride time on my horses than I would’ve liked. Fortunately, I have Melissa, my barn manager, to keep the horses going in my absence.

I had to make the hard decision not to enter Pepperoni in the Legends Futurity, which takes place this month. Between my schedule and his time off due to a sprained stifle, we’re just not ready. I probably could have pushed to get him ready for the dry work, but I am in it for the long run with this colt. I want to bring him along slowly, and not stress him mentally or physically. I plan to start Pepper on cattle this summer, and have him ready to compete next year as a 4-year-old in the Legends Maturity show in both the dry and wet work.

With less pressure on us now, I am working on the basics with my red-headed colt—introducing collection at the trot, refining his stops, developing his pivot into a spin, and introducing roll backs. As this harsh winter comes to a close, we’re able to ride in the outdoor arena now and I’m getting him out of the arena too, for a refreshing change of scene.

Meanwhile, Melissa has started shooting off my little mare, Annie. They had their first competition last weekend and they both did very well. Maybe we have found Annie’s forte! My boys, Eddie and Dually, are both happy and healthy. Dually is basically retired now, but we still get him out with the other horses, so he thinks his spot as my #1 horse is still secure. He’ll always be #1 in my heart, even if I can no longer ride him.

Ready to Get Started on Your Riding Goals?

Spring is almost upon us, and my team and I are getting ready to tackle our goals for this year in earnest! It’s easy to set the goal and promise yourself that you’re going to work with your horse X days a week, or practice really hard to get ready for a big ride or competition. But it can be really hard to actually START—whether it’s Day 1 or Day 25. Life happens—we get busy, things come up, and we excuse away making ourselves and our horses a priority.

If you need a little extra encouragement and support to meet your goals, join my new #HorseGoals Or Bust Facebook Group! This is a community where you can come to share your goals and updates, find support through frustrations and set-backs, be a cheerleaders for others, and celebrate accomplishments. See you there!

With my little mare Annie, my plan was to learn the basic movements of Garrocha—pole dancing with a horse! Her compact and athletic build makes little circles easy and ducking under that pole on a short horse just seems like it would work better. But alas, I am having great difficulty finding an adequate Garrocha pole (which has to be rigid, light enough to carry and about 13 feet long). Currently, I am eyeing one of my neighbor’s windsurfing masts and wondering if he would miss it….

I am seriously considering taking Eddie and Annie to the Legends of Ranching competition in April. I’ll need to decide soon because it will take me a few months to get the horses tuned up and ready to work cattle. If I decide to compete, it will make the goal-setting for these two horses easy.

For Dually, my old man (18 this year!), picking goals is more of a challenge.

First, at his age, I don’t want to do anything that would cause too much stress on his joints. Although he’d be great at Garoccha, he doesn’t need to be loping tiny circles. Plus, Dually is so well-trained that there aren’t many new skills to acquire. So I think I will work on the upper level Western Dressage tests and drill down on our accuracy and correctness.